New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand warned that the possible Department of Education eradication President Trump has alluded to will cause property taxes to spike across the state.
The Democratic duo gathered for a press meeting on the state of public education on Sunday morning days after Democratic members of Congress were denied entry to the Department of Education building.
The pair expressed concern over reports that Trump is considering gutting the department through an executive order and then pushing for legislation to abolish it altogether.
As many try to wrap their heads around what exactly the elimination of the DOE could look like, Hochul noted the ripple effect it could have on New Yorkers’ taxes, since states will need to find cash to make up for the loss of federal school funding.
“This is $5.5 billion that the State receives annually from the Department of Education — $3.2 billion goes directly into our budget, $2.3 billion goes to localities. If that money is jeopardized, what I can tell you will happen, localities lose that money, they will have to raise taxes,” Hochul said.
“For outside the city, your largest part of your local property tax bill is your school taxes. If that money evaporates from the federal government, where are they going to go?” the governor added. “This is going to hit homeowners and businesses, and I want them to be aware of this consequence.”
Trump has been hinting at his desire to shut down or cut back the DOE since his first term as part of his efforts to shrink the size of the federal government.
On the campaign trail, Trump told the crowd at a September rally in Wisconsin that he was “dying” to get back into office to “eliminate the federal Department of Education.”
“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” he said.
Eliminating the department would kill all programs it runs in schools, including free lunches for low-income students and the Pell Grants that fund college undergraduate attendance for roughly 7 million students annually. Some programs, however, could be moved to other agencies.
As the DOE drama continues to divide an already fraught Congress, Hochul called for action from the opposite side of the aisle.
“I want to know where New York state Republican members of Congress are on this issue. Where are you? Where are you? You are elected to represent the people who are going to be adversely affected, especially our children. And if you can’t speak up for them, then get out of your job and go do something else. We need your help,” Hochul said.
The Education Department was established by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 toward the end of his single term. Its creation split the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. It’s unclear if there are any plans to reunify the two departments or if the DOE will be dissolved outright.
Carter’s goal in creating the department was to uphold fairness and equality in Americans’ pursuit of education, which the president believed was “a fundamental right” for all.